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Video: Woman seized in Somalia returns to help

Transcript of: Woman seized in Somalia returns to help

ANN CURRY, co-host:Now to the humanitarian crisis in
Somalia
, a famine affecting millions of people. One brave woman has made it her mission to help, even though she was held prisoner there for 460 agonizing days.
NBC
's
Kate Snow
is in
Kenya
this morning with that woman's story.
Kate
, good morning.

KATE SNOW reporting:Good morning to you,
Ann.
When
Amanda Lindhout
was released a year and a half ago, she made it a point of founding an organization to bring schools to the Somali refugee camps here in
Kenya
in the hopes that if you educate
young people
they'll be less likely to commit violent acts. And then the famine hit, and she decided to do even more. A convoy into
Somalia
.

Ms. AMANDA LINDHOUT:I want to go in five minutes. This has been going on too long already, OK?

SNOW:Organizing a food convoy into southern
Somalia
is a logistical nightmare. Not many small aid organizations are even attempting it. So these are your two trucks.

Ms. LINDHOUT:Yeah. Yeah, I'm so excited to be bringing these trucks into
Somalia
.

SNOW:But 30-year-old
Amanda Lindhout
's devotion to the challenge is even more impressive when you consider the last time she spoke to the world from inside
Somalia
, perhaps the most dangerous country on
Earth
.

Ms. LINDHOUT:I don't know how much longer I can -- I can bear this.

SNOW:She'd been working as a freelance journalist when she was kidnapped in
Mogadishu
, held for 15 and a half months.

Ms. LINDHOUT:There's no one to take care of me here. I don't want to die here.

SNOW:They didn't treat you well at all.

Ms. LINDHOUT:No. It was about as bad as you can imagine. I was kidnapped by a handful of teenage boys. So you can only begin to imagine, you know, the types of abuse that I endured. And it probably surpasses even what your -- where your imagination can go.

SNOW:Daily, I imagine.

Ms. LINDHOUT:Daily.

SNOW:Chained, alone in a pitch-black room she began to dream about what she'd do if she ever made it out alive.

Ms. LINDHOUT:I found that the most positive way to spend the time was really to think about programs that I could create that would one day transform
Somalia
into a better place.

SNOW:After
Amanda's
family paid for her release she returned to her native
Canada
, but Thursday morning she set off for the very country she once begged to leave.

Ms. LINDHOUT:I was really tossing and turning.
And I
think maybe questioning right up until the end if I could actually go through with it. But here I am now, and I feel ready.

SNOW:You have permission from the transitional government now, of
Somalia
.

Ms. LINDHOUT:The last time that I was here it was not so good. But at the moment I'm feeling better. You know, there's a lot of security around. And you look at the little kids here and that's the -- that's the whole reason.

SNOW:Feeding the hungry was what this trip was all about, of course. But for
Amanda
it was also about reclaiming a part of herself, facing her fears and letting them go. And,
Ann
, she's already making plans for a second food convoy into
Somalia
. You can find more information about that at her
Web site
. It's globalenrichmentfoundation.com, or at our
Web site
today.com.

Ann:So impressive.
Kate Snow
,
thank you so much
for turning her suffering into some good.
Thank you so much
.

NAIROBI, Kenya — The drought and famine in Somalia have killed more than 29,000 children under the age of 5, according to U.S. estimates, the first time such a precise death toll has been released related to the Horn of Africa crisis.

The United Nations has said previously that tens of thousands of people have died in the drought, the worst in Somalia in 60 years. The U.N. says 640,000 Somali children are acutely malnourished, a statistic that suggests the death toll of small children will rise.

Schalk Van Zuydam
/
AP

Donkeys try to get water from a container in front of a home at a refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya, Thursday, Aug. 4. Dadaab, a camp designed for 90,000 people now houses around 440,000 refugees. Almost all are from war-ravaged Somalia. Some have been here for more than 20 years, when the country first collapsed into anarchy. But now more than 1,000 are arriving daily, fleeing fighting or hunger.

Nancy Lindborg, an official with the U.S. government aid arm, told a congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday that the U.S. estimates that more than 29,000 children under the age of 5 have died in the last 90 days in southern Somalia. That number is based on nutrition and mortality surveys verified by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The U.N. on Wednesday declared three new regions in Somalia famine zones, bringing the total number to five. Out of a population of roughly 7.5 million, the U.N. says 3.2 million Somalis are in need of immediate lifesaving assistance.

Getting aid to Somalia has been made more difficult because al-Qaida-linked militants control much of the country's most desperate areas. Al-Shabab has denied that a famine is taking place, and won't give access to the World Food Program, the world's biggest provider of food aid.

Families from southern Somalia wait for food rations at Maalin refugee camp at Hawlwadag district in Mogadishu on Sept.15. Somalia is the country worst affected by a severe drought in east Africa and the Horn that has left some 13 million people in danger of starvation.
(Abdurashid Abikar / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somali refugees stand amid graves in a makeshift graveyard at Ifo camp, one of three camps that make up the sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in Dadaab town, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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Somalian women queue for food at the Gift Of The Givers makeshift feeding center on Sept. 10 in Mogadishu. Gift Of The Givers is a South African-based disaster relief organization that is providing medical assistance and food aid to the famine-stricken people of Somalia.
(Gallo Images / Getty Images Contributor)
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Tahliil Hussan holds an X-ray that shows the bullet still lodged in his abdomen at the Forlanini Hospital on Sept. 11 in Mogadishu, Somalia. A delegation from Gift Of The Givers Foundation is providing medical services to the famine-stricken in Somalia.
(Gallo Images / Getty Images Contributor)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee boy tries to drink from a cup as he waits in line with his mother at a refugee reception center at Hagadera camp, one of three refugee camps that make up sprawling Dadaab refugee complex in Dadaab town, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee woman sobs as she is confined inside a makeshift cell for not following the procedures at a refugee reception center at Hagadera camp, northeastern Kenya, on Sept. 5.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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Refugees who have been living on the outskirts of the camps in Hagadera rush to load their belongings onto trucks as they choose to relocate to the newly-opened Kambioos settlement, at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya on Aug. 29. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees regularly logs more than 1,000 new arrivals from Somalia each day as the region's famine crisis continues.
(Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Men make donations to help the people of Somalia in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 22. A famine has swept across the Horn of Africa, leaving at least 3.7 million Somalis at risk of starvation.
(Fahad Shadeed / Reuters)
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Weak and malnourished, Hassan Ali Musa, 4, sits with his father Iisa Ali Musa at the Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Aug. 20. The U.N. estimates that more than 100,000 Somalis have fled to Mogadishu from famine and drought in the countryside.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A famine refugee plays with a soccer ball next to a camp for people displaced by drought and famine in Mogadishu on Aug. 18.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A security guard beats a woman for trying to enter a feeding center at a camp for people displaced by drought and famine in Mogadishu on Aug. 18.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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Somalis receive medical treatment at an outpatient hospital run by the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in Mogadishu on Aug. 17. More than 10,000 people are treated monthly at AMISOM's three hospitals in Mogadishu. Ugandan doctors there say that increasingly many of the ailments, especially among children, are related to malnutrition.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A security guard stands vigil outside a feeding center in Mogadishu on Aug. 16. The center, which serves cooked meals prepared using World Food Program aid, helps feed thousands of Somalis who have fled famine and drought in the countryside and have settled in makeshift camps throughout Mogadishu.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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An internally displaced Somali woman attends to her malnourished son at the Banadir hospital in Mogadishu on Aug. 16. Somalia called for the creation of a new force to protect food aid convoys and camps in the famine-hit country.
(Ismail Taxta / Reuters)
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Relatives of Hassan Abdulkadir Adan, third from left (rear), help to lower the body of his 7-year-old son into a grave in a refugee camp in Mogadishu, on Aug. 16.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A mother mourns the death of her son at the Banadir hospital on Aug. 16, in Mogadishu. The hospital has been overwhelmed by new patients, as sickness spreads through camps for people displaced by drought and famine.
(John Moore / Getty Images)
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A Somali boy receives a ration of cornmeal in the courtyard of a Somali non-governmental organization in Mogadishu.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.

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Mulmillo closes the eyes of her two-year-old son Mahmud moments after he died from malnutrition and related complications at a local hospital in Mogadishu on Aug. 15. Mulmillo, her husband and three children fled their village in the Lower Shabelle region of southern Somalia and came to Mogadishu in search of a refuge from severe drought in the region.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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A group of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) gather inside a courtyard after being designated to receive food aid from a Kuwaiti based Islamic charity in Mogadishu on Aug. 14.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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A Somali boy sings an Irish song to his classmates during class at the Illeys primary school in Dagahaley refugee camp, north of Dadaab, Eastern Kenya, on Aug. 11.
(Jerome Delay / AP)
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A Somali woman stands with several cans of water, ready to be transported by camel, in the town of Dhobley on Aug. 11.
(Phil Moore / AFP - Getty Images)
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Ethnic Turkana children sing and dance at Kalokutanyang Mobile School as aid workers arrive to inspect them in Kalokutanyang, Turkana, northwestern Kenya, on Aug. 9. A local official says that relief food has not reached many parts of the Turkana region where more than half the population is dependent on it, resulting in increasing child malnutrition.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A Somali father with his daughter sits at the head of a line with other refugees at a registration center on Aug. 2, at Dagahaley refugee site, after being displaced from their home in southern Somalia by famine.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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Residents of Mwingi District fetch water from a muddy puddle, one of the only sources of clean water in Kenya on Aug. 2.
(Ken Oloo/ / Red Cross and Red Crescent via EPA)
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Somali refugees sit around a makeshift grave for fellow refugee Husein Mahalin, who died at the age of 20, due to illness outside the Ifo camp, one of three that make up the sprawling refugee camp in Dadaab, northeastern Kenya, on Aug. 1.
(Dai Kurokawa / EPA)
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A young boy from southern Somalia takes cover under a plastic sheet in a refugee camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, Sunday, July 31. Tens of thousands of famine-stricken Somali refugees were cold and drenched after torrential rains overnight pounded their makeshift structures in the capital, Mogadishu. Rains are needed to plant crops and alleviate the drought that is causing famine in Somalia but on Saturday night the rains added to the misery of refugees who live in structures made of sticks and pieces of cloth.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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Warehouse attendants carry bags of goods donated during a drive by the Somali community living in Kenya's capital, to aid Somali refugees in Kenya's northeast province at the Dadaab refugee complex, on July 29.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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A newly arrived Somali refugee is forced out of the queue outside a reception centre in the Ifo 2 refugee camp in Dadaab, near the Kenya-Somalia border, on July 28.
(Thomas Mukoya / Reuters)
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Men unload the first airlifted humanitarian food aid at the Aden Abdulle Osman International Airport in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 27. The World Food Program airlifted 10 tons of emergency supplies to Mogadishu to feed thousands of malnourished children in drought-hit Somalia. Somalia is the country worst affected by a prolonged drought in Eastern Africa -- the region's worst in 60 years -- that has put some 12 million people in danger of starvation and spurred a global fund-raising campaign.
(Feisal Omar / AFP - Getty Images)
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Children drink water from the same place as cattle at Liboi, Kenya, on July 27. UNICEF says it is trying to vaccinate more than 300,000 children in Kenya in an emergency program designed to prevent an outbreak of disease as refugees stream into northern Kenya from famine-hit Somalia.
(Schalk van Zuydam / AP)
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A doctor examines Mihag Gedi Farah, a seven-month-old child with a weight of 7.5lbs (3.4kg), in a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in the town of Dadaab, Kenya, July 26. The U.N. will airlift emergency rations this week to parts of drought-ravaged Somalia to keep hungry refugees from dying along what an official calls the "roads of death." Tens of thousands already have trekked to neighboring Kenya and Ethiopia, hoping to get aid in refugee camps.
(Schalk Van Zuydam / AP)
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Used food tins are stacked at a field hospital of the International Rescue Committee, IRC, in Dadaab, July 26.
(Schalk Van Zuydam / AP)
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A malnourished child from southern Somalia is weighed in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu, July 24. The World Food Program can't reach 2.2 million Somalis in desperate need of aid in militant-controlled areas of Somalia, meaning refugee camps in nearby Kenya and Ethiopia are likely to continue seeing thousands of new refugees each week.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A general view of the Dadaab Refugee camp in eastern Kenya on July 23, where the influx of Somali's displaced by a ravaging famine remains high. 12 million people are struggling from the worst regional drought in decades, affecting parts of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Djibouti and Uganda.
(Tony Karumba / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees disembark a bus in the registration area of the IFO refugee camp which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement, July 23. The refugee camp at Dadaab, located close to the Kenyan border with Somalia, was originally designed in the early 1990s to accommodate 90,000 people but the UN estimates over 4 times as many reside there.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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An aid worker using an iPad films the rotting carcass of a cow in Wajir near the Kenya-Somalia border, July 23. Since drought gripped the Horn of Africa, and especially since famine was declared in parts of Somalia, the international aid industry has swept in and out of refugee camps and remote hamlets in branded planes and snaking lines of white 4x4s. This humanitarian, diplomatic and media circus is necessary every time people go hungry in Africa, analysts say, because governments - both African and foreign - rarely respond early enough to looming catastrophes.
(Barry Malone / Reuters)
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A dust storm blows as newly arrived Somalian refugees settle on the edge of the Dagahaley refugee camp, which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement, July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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A Somalian refugee helps to dig a latrine on the outskirts of the IFO refugee camp which makes up part of the giant Dadaab refugee settlement on July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees wait in the registration area of the Dagahaley refugee camp, part of the Dadaab refugee settlement on July 23.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Somalian refugees' documents are checked at the entrance to the registration area of the IFO refugee camp, on July 23, in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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A mother washes her malnourished child in the Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Boders) hospital on July 22, in the Dagahaley refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Oli Scarff / Getty Images)
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Drought-stricken camels drink water from a tank near Harfo, northwest of Somalia's capital Mogadishu, July 20. The United Nations declared famine in two regions of southern Somalia, and warned that this could spread further within two months in the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country unless donors step in.
(Thomas Mukoya / Reuters)
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Farhiya (centre) holds her 7-year-old sister Suladan by the hand as they follow their mother and brothers at the reception center of the Dolo Ado refugee camp near the Ethiopia-Somalia border on July 19. Refugees are being housed at the transit center while a new camp is being set up by the Ethiopian goverment and international aid organizations. Thousands of Somalis have fled in recent months to neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya in search of food and water, with many dying along the way.
(Roberto Schmidt / AFP - Getty Images)
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Somalis fleeing hunger in their drought-stricken nation walk along the main road leading from the Somalian border to the refugee camps around Dadaab, Kenya, on Wednesday, July 13. More than 11 million people in the Horn of Africa are confronting the worst drought in decades and need urgent assistance to stay alive, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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A woman from southern Somalia struggles to build a makeshift shelter from tree branches at a new camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, on July 13.
(Mohamed Sheikh Nor / AP)
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Osman Ali Aliyow Mursal digs a burial plot among other graves for his four-year-old son, Aden Ibrahim, as men prepare to pray over the boy's body, wrapped in a plastic mat, on the outskirts of Ifo II Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on Tuesday, July 12. Doctors were unable to save Aden, who died of diarrhea-related dehydration after four days of inpatient care. U.N. Refugee Chief Antonio Guterres said Sunday that drought-ridden Somalia is the "worst humanitarian disaster" in the world, after meeting with refugees who endured unspeakable hardship to reach the world's largest refugee camp in Dadaab, Kenya.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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Aden Salaad, 2, looks up at his mother as she bathes him in a tub at a Doctors Without Borders hospital, where Aden is receiving treatment for malnutrition, in Dagahaley Camp, outside Dadaab, Kenya, on Monday, July 11.
(Rebecca Blackwell / AP)
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A Somali child from southern Somalia holds his brother as they wait outside a ruined building before making their way to the internally displaced persons camps in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Friday, July 8.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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A refugee from Southern Somalia carries her baby and her belongings, as she makes her way to a camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Monday, July 5.
(Farah Abdi Warsameh / AP)
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.